April 9, 2019

Bureau of Prisons

This week, voters elected a new host of Democratic legislators and governors, flipping the balance of power in many state governments and in the U.S. House of Representatives. Although Democrats in Congress, in particular, will have their hands full dealing with the Trump White House, elected officials who find the time and wherewithal to address […]

• “North Carolina inmates who break prison rules will spend significantly less time in solitary confinement under a new policy that state leaders hope will help make prisons safer,” reported the Charlotte Observer. “Under the state’s new disciplinary policy, which took effect Monday, inmates who commit offenses generally can’t be sent to solitary for longer than […]

• Boston Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham penned a piece about solitary confinement. “We like to think of ourselves as enlightened here in Massachusetts,” she writes. “But when it comes to how we treat inmates in our jails and prisons, a bunch of other states have us beat.” • Senators Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren introduced The Dignity […]

• Federal appellate judges decided a lawsuit can proceed against officials at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, after correctional officers allegedly forced a prisoner to live in a solitary confinement cell flooded with raw sewage. Raul Arellano filed the lawsuit in October 2014, claiming that what occurred violated his Eighth Amendment […]

Citing the “devastating, lasting psychological consequences” of solitary confinement, President Barack Obama on Monday evening announced a set of policy changes designed to dramatically reduce the use of prison isolation. The changes, which apply only to the federal prison system, will have a limited initial impact on the total number of people held in solitary, […]

More than 100 organizations from across the United States sent an open letter to President Obama Friday calling for the elimination of long-term and indefinite solitary confinement. The signatories – including civil and human rights groups, religious organizations, and groups of defense attorneys and mental health professionals – ask the President to take quick and […]

President Barack Obama said in a speech today that he has asked Attorney General Loretta Lynch to “start a review of the overuse of solitary confinement across American prisons.” He went on to challenge the practice as counterproductive as well as inhumane. In a speech on criminal justice delivered at the annual convention of the […]

The following roundup features noteworthy news, reports and opinions on solitary confinement from the past week that have not been covered in other Solitary Watch posts. • A student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison wrote a piece for the Huffington Post calling for the end of youth solitary in prisons across the country. A bill to end […]

The following roundup features noteworthy news, reports and opinions on solitary confinement from the past week that have not been covered in other Solitary Watch posts. • A US District Judge has ruled in favor of several plaintiffs named in an ongoing class action lawsuit against the use of solitary confinement in California prisons. Incarcerated individuals […]

A long-awaited audit of the use of solitary and other forms of isolated confinement in the federal Bureau of Prison (BOP) recommends minor reforms while affirming the overall legitimacy and efficacy of a system that holds more than 10,000 people in extreme isolation. At 242 pages in length, the Federal Bureau of Prisons: Special Housing Unit Review […]

Amid growing controversy around the use of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons and jails, and in advance of an audit of its own prison “segregation” practices, the federal government is quietly moving ahead with a plan that would significantly increase its capacity to house individuals in long-term isolation. The 2015 Omnibus Appropriations bill passed by […]